"Gordon R. Dickson - The Right to Arm Bears" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

the older man was wearing a sound dampening coil behind each ear. It had not of course, thought
John a trifle bitterly, occurred to him to suggest the same protection for John.
The price was finally settled at three and a quarter pounds of steel nails, size and type to be at
Shaking Knees' discretion, at some future date.
"Well, now," said Joshua, "the next thing isтАФhow's the Bluffer going to carry him?"
"Who? Him?" boomed the Bluffer, focusing down on John. "Why, I'll handle him like he was a week-
old pup. Wrap him up real careful in some soft straw, tuck him in the bottom of my mail pouch
andтАФ"
"Hey!" cried John.
"I'm afraid," said Joshua, "my friend's right. We're going to have to find some way he can ride
more comfortably."
The meeting adjourned to the embassy warehouse adjoining, to see what could be rigged up in the
way of a saddle.
***
"I won't wear it!" the Hill Bluffer was trumpeting, two hours later. They were all standing in the
Humrog main street by this time, in front of the warehouse; and the cause of the Bluffer's upset,
a system of straps and pads arranged into a sort of shoulder harness to carry John, lay on the
cobblestones before them. A small number of local Dilbian bystanders had gathered; and their
freely offered basso comments were not of a sort to bring the Hill Bluffer to a more reasonable
frame of mind.
"Now, that's a real good system for my old lady to tote the youngest pup around," one Dilbian with
a grey scar jaggedly across his black nose, was saying.
"Good training for the Bluffer, too," put in another blackfurred monster. "Have pups of his own,
one of these days."
"Unless," said the scar-nosed one, judiciously, "this here little feller actually is a pup of the
Hill Bluffer's, already."
"You don't mean to actually tell me!" said the other. He squinted at John. "Yep, there's a
resemblance all right."


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"You want your ear tore off," roared the infuriated Bluffer, pausing in the midst of his hot
argument with Shaking Knees and Two Answers. "This here piece of mail's a Shorty!"
John backed off a little from the bellowing group and tried to shut the voices out of his mind,
even if shutting them out of his ears was somewhat impractical . He was in that stage of
helplessly worn-out exasperation which often results when naturally independent and strong-willed
people are pushed around without explanation and without the chance for natural protest.
He turned his back on the shouting group and gazed off through the thin, clear air of the Dilbian
mountains that made everything seem three times as close as they actually were, to a snow-laden
peak thrusting up above the pinelike trees surrounding Humrog.
"At least try the unmentionable thing on!" Shaking Knees was roaring at the Hill Bluffer a dozen
feet away.
Here, thought John, he had been hauled off the ship that was to take him out to his job with a
government exploration team; it was work he had always wanted and just finished seven years of
college-level study for. Instead he was on a citizen's draft which left him no chance to object.
Well, yes, John had to admit to himself, the Draft Law provided he could refuse if he could charge
the Drafting AuthorityтАФin this case, JoshuaтАФwith incompetence or misinformation. John snorted
under his breath. Fine chance he had of doing that when he couldn't even find out what was going